Your Cup of Trembling
by coincidenced
Summary: "Praying to the porcelain god didn't really answer any of his prayers. But praying to the other gods would have produced the same effect anyways, so Tsukishima would put his idol on a pedestal and keep smashing himself until he felt whole." / Drabbles. AU. Psychiatric disorders / trigger warning.


**Of Cherry Blossoms and Porcelain Gods**

 **or : A** **Ridiculous Series of Complexes about Flowers and Toilets.**

 **Tsukishima Kei –** **Bulimia Nervosa or, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified**

* * *

 **Warnings:** eating disorders, language, implied/explicitly stated sex (it's not graphic, dw dw)

 **Note:** I'll carve my heart writing this particular portion, and maybe yours too in the process.

 **Beta reader:** none

 **Chapter summary:** In which Tsukishima Kei is jealous of cherry blossom trees.

* * *

"What do you think love tastes like, Tsukishima," Kuroo asks, sprawled out on the grass.

It is the time of the day -or perhaps the night- when it is impossible to distinguish exactly what is happening in the universe. The early morning is giving way to breaking dawn and the sun's rays are reaching across the expanse of the sky, so far away.

They'll probably be covered with bug bites tomorrow. Or today.

The blond crinkles his eyebrows together. "I think it tastes like alcohol." He's being honest. Subtly, the middle blocker brings his right hand to rest on his stomach. He is lying in the grass too, in the direction opposite Kuroo.

The raven barks an amused laugh.

 _Disgusting. Bitter. Carbonated. Reeking of regret._

"Really?" Kuroo asks, a bit quieter this time.

"Yeah." The blond nods. "Drink enough beer and it'll taste like love."

He would know.

* * *

Tsukishima curses quietly under his breath.

When he rolls onto this side on his bed to stare rather tiredly at his morning alarm clock, the time glares back at him, bold and red. 7:00 AM. It is time for school.

 _School._

As if by clockwork, his phone buzzes on his nightstand once, twice. And then goes silent.

He lets the angry sound of his morning alarm go off for about five more seconds before he slams the snooze button and sits up, unlocking his phone.

 _7:01 AM  
Yamagushi Tadashi  
Good morning Tsukki! I hope you slept well last night. Don't forget the book teacher wanted us to bring in this morning! And don't forget your lunch! See you in half an hour!_

The blond only tsks slightly and clicks his phone off, opening his curtains –the sun was so _bright_ , jesus, had it always been so goddamn painful to wake up in the morning– and standing up to stretch.

He trudges to the bathroom. Takes off his glasses. Washes his face. Dries it. Puts on his glasses. Toothbrush, toothpaste, brush, rinse, dry.

He grips the edges of his bathroom counter with his hands until his knuckles turn white, glaring at his reflection for some time. The blond takes deep breath, counts down from ten, and steps on the scale in his bathroom.

60.9 kilos. 61.

He swallows once as he hurriedly steps off of it tries not to panic. Does his best. Fails.

* * *

"So what is yours called?"

"Mm? My what?"

"Your eating disorder."

Tsukishima stiffens, swallowing once, swallowing air, even though he hasn't swallowed anything else all day. "Oh. It's…" He looks up at the blooming cherry blossom trees as they shed themselves of their blooms with the wind. If only he could make himself lesser as easily as they did. "It's called bulimia."

"Ah."

"Why do you ask?"

"So I know what it is. So I don't make an insensitive joke or comment or something like that."

"You don't need to worry. I'm not triggered easily or anything like that."

"I know. I think it's because you're always at your nadir. Triggers don't exist when you're at rock bottom."

The blond chuckles a little, sourly but also in agreement. "Okay. Yeah."

"You're beautiful."

"Please don't."

"I'm serious. I don't know what you see when you look in the mirror, but I wish you could s-"

Tsukishima has cried enough times in his life that it is no longer dangerous, or exciting. He has also heard all the advice humanity could ever give to people with all varieties of eating disorders and mental problems. He doesn't want to hear it anymore.

 _I wish you could see what I see._

Alright, well he couldn't.

"That's what disorders are." His tone of voice is cold. "Being unable to see what's right there. Seeing something else. It's not something any of us can fucking help, and you should stop trying to say you're an advocate of raising awareness for mental health if you subconsciously think that our mental distortions are our fault.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. To each his own cross."

The other looks at the blond and sets their jaw. Absentmindedly he wonders what Tsukishima is trying to fulfill by emptying himself.

* * *

Friendship tastes like whiskey.

That's what Tsukishima thinks anyways. At first it doesn't taste that bad. And then it burns horribly. And sometimes, if the whiskey is good enough, you feel a little happier after all of it.

As he walks next to Yamaguchi on their way to school, Tsukishima feels like he doesn't deserve the alcohol the brunette is always offering him. He can't even fathom it. The blond knows his temper is short, rigid, and hard to please. He has a god-awful case of the smirks and he's flat-out rude more often than not.

"Did you sleep well last night Tsukki?"

"Yeah." He lies smoothly. "You?"

"My mom didn't come home until late last night, so I didn't get much sleep, but…" Yamaguchi keeps talking but Tsukishima stops listening. Delicate purple bruises are lined under his friend's eyes – Tsukishima wouldn't hesitate to bet that Yamaguchi hadn't slept at all last night.

The boy wonders how someone so kind and caring could apparently care so little for himself.

"Did you bring the book teacher wanted us to bring?"

"Mm… I think." Tsukishima shifts his bag on his shoulders a little, feeling the weight of it. "Yeah, pretty sure I did."

"Your lunch?"

"Hmm…" The blond casts a bored expression on his face. "Forgot."

"Tsukki!" The other chastises. "You've gotta eat! We have practice today and…"

Again, Tsukishima zones out. Recently, he's been having trouble focusing on any sentence that strings more than five or six words together. He knows what it is, but he refuses to admit it. It's not like he's lost any weight or anything, so it can't actually be palpably affecting him.

Or so he reasons.

It is more out of latent anger than anything.

Even when he sees the signs, he can't bring himself to admit it. A loss of energy and focus, a perpetual feeling of coldness, discoloration in his nails, easier bruising… These were all subtle, insignificant side effects of malnutrition. It was basic biology he had learned in 8th grade.

But. It wasn't like he had lost any weight or anything.

So. I couldn't actually be affecting him.

Because fat people don't have eating disorders.

* * *

"It's not really bulimia, even though that's what the shrink said."

"Oh? Well, isn't she more qualified to diagnose than you are?"

"Only if she has the big picture."

Kuroo ruminates on this. "Why doesn't she?" He asks after some time.

"The idea of someone boxing me in, understanding me better than I understand myself is…"

"Terrifying." The raven finishes for him.

"It's just an eating disorder. It's not something that can be boxed in."

"In other words, your kind of fucked up can't be categorized."

The words sting, but Tsukishima hadn't started this journey looking for tenderness. He started it looking for sharpness, sharp edges, sharp curves, sharp bones.

"Tsukishima, you're not going to eat?"

The blond peers up from his phone and slides his headphones off of his ears. He holds up his juice box in response to the enquiry. This seems to satisfy his sensei, and they return to looking at whatever was on their desk.

Once he finishes his drink Tsukishima crushes it with one hand and tosses it into the nearby trashcan.

The blond's head is already running numbers.

The juice box was 60 calories. He'll be taking a cold shower today.

* * *

"Do you want to go back to my place?"

"Is this a proposition?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on you. Either way, you would have been crashing at my place right? Hotels in Tokyo are expensive."

"Money's never been a real problem with us, Kuroo-san."

"Tsukishima," the raven drawls, "you're so cold to me. Loosen up a little why don't you."

"I could use something to warm me up anyways. Shall we?"

Go back to Kuroo's place they do. His parents are out, by some stroke of luck, on business and they had left a note stating they wouldn't be back until mid-day the next day. Well, it wasn't a bad way to kick off spring break.

Walking into Kuroo's room feels like tasting peppermint. A shock of a sensation at first; something Tsukishima knew he'd be tasting –or thinking about, in this case– for awhile afterward.

Kuroo pushes the blond down onto his bed. He pretends it doesn't bother him how little resistance the sassy younger boy puts up.

The raven has never had a way with words. He doesn't like the phrase "made love." It is too tender, lover-like. He doesn't like the phrase "fucked through the mattress" either. That's too much. He settles for "slept with," even though he won't be narrating it to anyone any time soon; even though that phrase doesn't quite sit too well with him either.

After they're done, Tsukishima sleeps using Kuroo's arm as a pillow, Kuroo's ceiling fan on, going round and round. The blond's back is to the raven, and his breathing is even. Sleeping.

Kuroo examines the bare back offered to him with observant eyes. Tsukishima's pale – probably too pale for someone who spends so much time outside playing volleyball and doing drills. He's also thin, though not so thin that a stranger would ever suspect anything about his eating habits. Kuroo only knows because Tsukishima had dubbed him trustworthy enough –or insignificant enough, who knew, maybe the two terms were synonymous to the blond– to confide in.

The one thing that catches Kuroo's eye and makes his stomach turn are the individual vertebrae protruding from Tsukishima, prominent and pushing outward, one by one, discrete enough to count.

Kuroo closes his eyes, giving butterfly kisses to the other's back.

His spine.

 _The last bridge he has left to burn._

* * *

There are certain things Tsukishima has learned from throwing things up.

One. Salad might be an ideal diet food, but it was one of the worst things to purge if you had it with dressing. As if stomach acid wasn't basic and sour enough, purging salad dressing burned the skin off his throat.

Two. Purging bread was weird. Not bad really. Just really fucking weird.

Three. Purging something made you hate the taste of it for days, sometimes even weeks afterward. It made not eating that much easier.

Four. Throwing up slows down your metabolism. Days of internet research showed cold water and green tea to help combat slow metabolism.

Five. Brushing his teeth with baking soda had become a nightly ritual.

Six. Praying to the porcelain god didn't really answer any of his prayers. But praying to the other gods would have produced the same effect anyways, so reason and objectivity be damned, Tsukishima would put his idol on a pedestal and keep smashing himself until he felt whole.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
